Which Electricity Retailer Is The Cheapest In Singapore?

TL;DR: Ultimately Singaporeans will get cheaper electrical bills (As of 3 July 2018)

Starting 1st April 2018, 108,000 households and 9,500 business in Jurong will get the chance to choose an electricity retailer that best suits their needs.

Average electricity usage has a declining trend since last year.

There are a total of 14 players and 3 most distinct types of price plans available.

For Fixed Price Plan:Sun Electric has a 3 months contract planBest Electricity is the cheapest for 6 months.Sembcorp Power is the cheapest for a 1-year contract.Geneco is the cheapest for a 2-year contract.Ohm Electricity has a No Contract Plan for this category.

For Discount Off Tariff Plan:Geneco has the cheapest 3 months contract plan.
iSwitch is the cheapest when it comes to contracts more than 6 months.Sembcorp Power is the cheapest when it comes to 1-year contract while Best Electricity, for a 2 years contract.

For peak and off-peak plans: PacificLight dominates this category.

How much Singaporeans spend on electricity bill every month?

Singaporeans are subjected to Electricity Tariff, which is regulated by the Energy Market Authority (EMA).

This Electricity Tariff is updated every quarterly, and as of Q3 2018, which is from 1 July 2018 to 30 September 2018, the Electricity Tariff is at 23.65 cents/kWh (25.31 cents/kWh with GST)

The Electricity Tariff is made up of 4 components:

Market Administration and Power System Operation Fee – 0.05 cents/kWhPaid to Energy Company and Power System Operator. Reviewed annually.

Market Support Services Fee (MSS) – 0.40 cents/kWhReviewed annually.

Network Cost – 5.31 cents/kWhReviewed annually.

Energy Cost – 17.89 cents/kWhReviewed quarterly.

The sum of the 4 components makes up your Electricity Tariff, which will be what consumer pays for their monthly electricity bill.

Average Electricity Consumption And Electricity Bill Of Singaporeans

To give a good judgment on how the new scheme of using private electricity retailers will affect our electricity bills, we went on to find out on average, how much Singaporeans spend on electricity.

First, we find out the amount of electricity an average Singaporean consumes:

Now that we have a good estimation of how much electricity (in kWh) is being consumed for each property type, we went on to give an estimation of the cost (inclusive of GST):

Property Type

Average Electricity Consumption per month(kWh)

Average Cost of Electricity per month

HDB 1-Room

134

S$33.92

HDB 2-Room

187.5

S$47.46

HDB 3-Room

269

S$68.08

HDB 4-Room

364.5

S$92.26

HDB 5-Room

423.8

S$107.27

HDB Executive

520.5

S$131.74

Apartment

526.8

S$133.34

Terrace

892.5

S$225.90

Semi-Detached

1185.5

S$300.05

Bungalow

2414.3

S$611.06

Open Electricity Market in Jurong

As of 1st April 2018, households and businesses in Jurong will have the option to purchase electricity from a retailer. This reduces the reliant on SP group (SP Services) for electricity, where cost is based on a regulated tariff that changes every quarter.

Should this be a success, Singaporeans may go under this new initiative.

To kick-start this new initiative, 14 electricity retailers are authorised to start offering their plans for Jurong.

Assuming peak period is defined as the time where most Singaporeans are at home. Hence, if you have working hours which are away from the norm, this might be the plan for you given that your electricity usage will be during off-peak.

We see less company is having the Peak and off-peak plans mainly due to possible extra meter needed to be fixed at the household to monitor the electrical activity.

Company

Peak and off-peak plans

Peak

Off Peak

PacificLight

$0.1807/kWh
or
16% off tariff
(7am to 11pm)

$0.1667/kWh
or
26% off tariff
(11pm to 7am)

Keppel Electric

$0.1880/kWh
(7am to 11pm)

$0.1538/kWh
(11pm to 7am)

Tuas Power

$0.202/kWh
(7am to 6.59pm)

$0.19/kWh
(7pm to 6.59am)

Hyflux Energy

Only available upon requests

Geneco

Does not offer Peak and off-peak plans

Red Dot Power

Does not offer Peak and off-peak plans

Best Electricity

Does not offer Peak and off-peak plans

Sunseap

Does not offer Peak and off-peak plans

Sun Electric

Does not offer Peak and off-peak plans

Diamond Electric

Does not offer Peak and off-peak plans

Sembcorp Power

Does not offer Peak and off-peak plans

Senoko Energy

Does not offer Peak and off-peak plans

iSwitch

Does not offer Peak and off-peak plans

Ohm Electricity

Does not offer Peak and off-peak plans

PacificLight charges the cheapest for Peak period whereas Keppel Electric is cheapest when it comes to Off-peak.

Consumers should look at their electric usage timing closer should they want to be on a peak and off-peak plan.

Do take note that Geneco and PacificLight offer peak and off-peak discount off tariff plans which might be attractive to consumers.

Should a consumer chooses to go with Peak and Off-peak plan, installing a smart meter is necessary to track your electricity consumption every half an hour.

The meter installation fee costs $40 (before GST).

Further Reading:

Transmission Loss Factors (TLF)

Scaling factors that are already applied at the metering point to account for network and transformer losses.

Residential customers fall under the 230.400V category when it comes to TLF

SP Group should have already adjusted this to derive the usage of consumers, hence, private retailers will simply take the information from SP Group and bill accordingly.